I’ve been living with the Raspberry Pi for several months now, and have found this astonishing little computer to be even more amazing than expected. Despite its diminutive dimensions, the Raspberry Pi is as fruity and satisfying as its name suggests.

However, there are users out there who have had less than successful experiences with the Raspberry Pi. There might well be varying reasons for this, but it’s safe to say that one of the main causes of dissatisfaction is an impression that the little computer that can, well, can’t…

What’s Wrong With My Raspberry Pi?

Let’s get to the nub of the issue. The only thing wrong with your Raspberry Pi is you. Unless you have been extremely unlucky and been sent a dud, the issues you’re experiencing are more than likely due to power supply, problems with the SD card or incorrect cabling.

I’ve come across all of these problems myself, and while it is tempting to make shortcuts on a cheap computer it really isn’t wise if you’re expecting good results.

The following common issues can be resolved very easily by simply reseating, replacing or starting over. It might seem surprising that they can cause such problems, but given the size of the Raspberry Pi and its requirement for peripherals, it really shouldn’t be unexpected.

Avoiding a Corrupted SD Card

Arguably the most common problem for anyone using a Raspberry Pi is the effect of a corrupted SD card. Now, this shouldn’t be an issue if you have used an SD card that is designed to be written to regularly, but older SD Cards can become corrupted quite easily, leading to the operating system being unable to boot.

For a Raspberry Pi, you should be using a high-rated SDHC card, at least 2 GB. The Raspberry Pi uses the storage much like a high-end tablet PC or ultrabook (such as the MacBook Air) uses an SSD, and the SDHC format is particularly resilient.

However, regardless of which SD card formatHow To Choose The Right SD Card For The JobHow To Choose The Right SD Card For The JobSD cards aren't all about storage! In fact, there are several other factors to consider, and when purchasing your cards, you should make yourself aware of them. That said, SD cards aren't all created equal,...Read More you choose, there are others way in which you can easily end up with corrupted data. The first is to remove the SD card while the Raspberry Pi is running. As with USB storage devices on a Windows PC, this should only be done if the storage device can be safely removed – when the Raspberry Pi is switched off.

Similarly, switching off the Raspberry Pi in the incorrect manner often corrupts the operating system. To shutdown safely you should open a command line and enter the following command:

sudo shutdown -h now

Alternatively, use the shutdown option from the desktop GUI.

Rely Only On The Mains Power

The fact that the Raspberry Pi uses a USB mains adaptor for power can lead you into a false sense of security when it comes to sending power to the device.

After all, USB ports can be found on PCs and some desktop monitors, so why not use one of these connectors to power the mini-computer?

Unfortunately it isn’t as simple as that. While the Raspberry Pi might receive enough power from a USB 2.0 port to boot up and run, running processor-intensive tasks or powering a keyboard, mouse, USB storage or USB network connection will probably prove too much. If the Pi shuts down straight after booting, you can be sure that the computer has insufficient power.

As a result, you should only power your Raspberry Pi using a suitable mains power adaptor.

Similarly, be aware that various adapters that are cheaply available from eBay and other online retailers can lead to issues. HDMI to VGA adapters for instance, might claim to be usable but faults can easily arise, putting both your Raspberry Pi and your monitor or HDTV at risk.

Also be aware that USB cables designed for charging smartphones may not be suitable for powering the Raspberry Pi, even if a mains adapter is connected.

Conclusion: Make Sure Everything Is Connected and Setup Correctly!

If you’re using a Raspberry Pi, you should be certain that as with a typical desktop computer, everything is connected correctly. Before booting for the first time, even, you should confirm that you have the necessary cables, peripherals and storage media to hand.

Being aware of how to correctly shutdown the Raspberry Pi is absolutely crucial, and can save a lot of time re-imaging your SD card in the event of data corruption.

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victoria

August 16, 2017 at 4:08 am

I'm using a RPI for a class project so far i have had a hell of a time from getting an adapter to finding the SD card that it cam with cracked and wouldn't boot up now that i got a new 8gb SD and copied the OS to it i'm getting a message that says "waiting for SD card(setting partitions) quite frankly i showed my teacher the issue in lab and he didn't know what to do .Did i copy the files wrong?what caused this message and doesn't boot up

Well I must say that the cracked SD card was quite a problem to deal of.
But when you get the 8 GB SD card (it was not microSD?), does it support the higher read/write rate? If the card do not support a higher rate of read or write, then the system was not recognizing one.
Because if the system was waiting for SD card or setting partitions, either your SD card is not formatted correctly or the system was on the board (depends on the model), and that I assume you should be able to type something. If not, however, then check your SD card, and make sure that everything is in the way they come and not crammed into one single folder.

Just got mine yesterday all was good starting up once in libreelec i noticed that it stops all of a sudden. So i added a fan think it may be overheating. Still same thing just freezes for a second or two. I wonder if the 64gb card i formated to fat32 may be a problem.

Just an update purchases a new 16 gig Samsung Evo card and now it's running like a champ I guess it didn't like the 64 gig Patriot class 10 card

John M.

January 12, 2017 at 10:15 pm

Once again MUO reply is on the money. And it got me to thinking and playing around. I now have 2 RPi units. Physically, they are quite different and look nothing like hardware shown on the rasberrypi.org site or for that matter any images I've looked at. The Kano raspberrypi is physically unique from anything I've seen (2 vertical USB port, 1 Ethernet, 1 HDMI and 1 RCA plug?). I've not encountered many problems with the RPI3 with Kano software either running or corrupting itself, but once booted to the "3" it won't ever boot on the original box. It would appear that hardware is setting something in firmware (SD) that appears to be corruption, but is not.
Another semi-interesting item is the difference between software downloaded from raspberrypi.org...their Noobs appears to be a lite version of their Jessie DE. Kano's on the other hand has a interesting Noobs designed for young kids and old people like me. Their Jessie is more a DE similar to the .org versions.

On the older Pi box, my grandson and I have adopted a policy of not swapping cards, doing manual... sudo shutdown -h now....shutdowns and making sure there are no blinking led's for write activity, before pulling the card and then pulling power cord. Then we put the card back in and wait for the next opportunity to "play" and just plug the unit back in. No problems for weeks now!

This all sounds good, but this a relatively new KANO kit I got for the grandson. The original card died for whatever reason. We are usinfgboth 8 and 16 gig SanDisk class 10 cards, with no joy. The only software available software is Beta. Kind of hard to separate the wheat from the chafe.

Hello my raspbery pi is using piaware from flightaware its on 24/24 my usb ports wont have power i connect usb dongle and wont work i try with a keyboard and nothing. The rasp have power but not in the usb ports.any solutions? Thanks

have a similar issue:my raspberry with openelec worked perfectly, i went for a three weekd holiday and when i came back and turned it on, usb devices (mouse, hdd, soundcard) were not seen anymore. i tried a new sdcard with a fresh install but still doesnot work. except usb everything seems ok : it boots, network is on, hdmi is ok.
so strange...
any idea og what's going on ?

similar issue: my rasp with openelec wormed perfectly but i went on three weeks holidays and when i came back and tuened it on. usb devices were not sen anymore, even just a mouse. except for udb, everything is ok: hdmi, network, boot, browse....
so strange. any idea?

Hi
I'm using a raspberry pi B+, First time boot is correctly done and I got the user interface. when I shut down the raspberry pi and turn off the power supply and then turn it on, my raspberry pi doesn't boot.

I honestly have no clue what's wrong with the pi. When I connected it to an HDMI monitor (no i didn't use an adaptor) it showed a black screen. All I saw was a red light. Then i reinstalled the os on a 16 gb card and connected the pi to my router with an ethernet cable so I could control it with my laptop, advanced ip scanner couldn't find the pi. I tried to run raspbian jessie. What's wrong with it?

Pi is quite sensible to power supply. I don't know the approved power supply. I bought mine on a yard sale; 5V 2.5A. I checked it and it was good to 2A and start to drop after. I changed wires for 14AWG duplex, less the very end 4cm cable, maybe 20AWG, with micro usb connector. I did check the noise with a DSO and power was quite noisy. I added two inductors, one each line and two low ESR 100µF capacitors plus one ceramic 100nF, all three in parallel. Now power is clean and noise down from 100mVpp to 2mVpp. Never used Noobs or installed any OS directly, but I use Berryboot. Almost two years and so far so good. Never corrupted my only one 8Gb sd card. I do not know the brand or type (is it a way to know? Nothing printed on it!).
Installed Raspbian, on which I run Kicad, OpenElec, Snowshoe and Kali. OpenElec crashes sometimes, but works most of the time.
I wait until "No Signal" is displayed on my TV to cut off power.
Maybe a future project could be a self controlled switch using a low R MOSFET.
But things like these are not on the reach of my motivated 14y/o son, less for a preschooler.

Guys if u cannot find enough powerful adapter just buy one voltage controller from alixpress / amazon for 2 dollars hook any adapter up to 48 volts and u will have enough power to power up 5 pi at a time..

im using more than 15 pi round my company and they work amazing, and they have some serious amount of relays connected ( 21 relay per PI ) to them ( im using them for automation ) and i never got problem with rebooting..

the only mayor issue im facing that if ii don't clear the log by hand ( or crontab ) once month they get overfilled with data and cannot login into.

Sorry, but ALL version of the RPi have serious storage issues. even with a high class SD/TF card, you are GOING to have corruption. There's no way around it, it's mainly due to the fact that the pi has a tendency to "guess" when the card is being written/read from, and sometimes attempts to do both at the same time, on the same block..

This is especially true when running apt-get update, upgrade or dist-upgrade.

The fact that the dev of RPi still haven't addressed this issue is shocking to me. Instead of fixing known issues, they are instead expanding upon a weak platform. Namely, if your storage solution doesn't function properly, or at minimal, consistently, than your entire project is at the whims of whatever nonsense is going on.

If it's a power stability issue, simply add on a circuit to clean up the current, or not power on if insufficient current is available.

If it's the so called "cheap cards" that are at fault, replacing them with a small on-board NAND, or other such storage solution would solve everyone's problem, as you now have a situation where quality is controlled during manufacture, not by the cheapness / gullibility of the end user.

i've seen quite a few excuses made over the years for RPi's storage woes, but not once have i seen the issue addressed at the manufacturing, or development level, an area that should in theory have stricter control over quality, and consistencies.

I gotta say it's a piece of crap. I am an experienced Linux user and yet I can't get Ubuntu core to work flawlessly. It is supposed to run as a printer server and it constantly shuts down. I don't have the shutdown button and I need to unplug and plug it back on, wait till it boots, then print. It's a pain every time. I'll get an Intel compute stick and get it to work.

Why is every body on here trying to be nice I but the Raspberry Pi 2??? It is a piece of shit, I order case, I order heat sinks, I order 32Gb SanDisk micro sd card , power supply and key board formatted card 5 different times and reloaded software and it still does not work. And I keep hearing this crap about there is a chance that you might have a bad 1 is 1 out of a 1000 crap!!!! I have never seen any piece of electronic equipment have so many issues right out of the box, I mean really the damn thing does not even turn on, And that Video pisses me off even more, that little Animation about Now that you have you raspberry pi it is so easy to hook up Well I have been reading forum fixes for days trying out type of hocus pocus remedies and I have had it!!!!! You need to take that video down about how easy it is to hook up Raspberry PI that is FALSE ADVERTISEMENT!!!!!

Yeah I am going to call BS on that comment most 4 yr olds can barely tie their shoes and you want me to believe a 4 yr old can insert a micro sd card in adapter format the card to the right specs download the zip file, extract it and loaded it to the micro sd and eject it from the computer properly and remove it from the adapter and load the tiny micro sd into Raspberry pi????? Yeah once again no freaking way. And if the kid really can do all this you need to take your super baby and put it on tv so all the World can worship and admire The mini miracle Buddha incarnate Baby!!!

I know everybody loves their kids so I don't want to make this personal but in the video the 9 year old kid did not know where to put the Preloaded Noob Sd card. But I digress I am not here to cause trouble I just got pissed off with all the problems I was having from my newly purchased Raspberry PI 2.

these boards are pure shit
i bought 1 pi 3 model b and 5 pi zeros 1.3
i can't get up and running on ANY of them!
what pieces of shit
tried 5 different keyboards with all 6 devices and none of them will even detect a keyboard i wrote rasbian jessie lite to my MSD with win32disk imager
i get boot but i can never get past the log in because these piece of shit will not even work with ANY keyboards
WTF kind of shit is this?

Nah I've got an adapter that all other Pi users that live around here (can't get the official adapter here) and ditto for the cable. Still replaced the cable, then the adapter, then another cable, then another cable, then the Pi and now it works sorta.
I think it's a specific brand of SD card that's (even though it's on the supported list) just doesn't get read properly every single time.
Pi is so nitpicky when it comes to power supply and SD cards...

I appreciate the help, but I've went through all the usual tips like checking power, checking sd and that didn't solve it after 20 hours of messing with it. Now it's almost reliable though and that's as good as it's gonna get.

Yea I've replaced the SD card with a new supported (identical) one, they don't sell official adapters in the Netherlands so I had to go with the next best thing. A velleman adapter that is popular amongst dutch Pi users. I also switched out the cable 4 times (while the second cable I got works for all other local Pi users) and replaced the adapter because the store told me it must be defective considering the problems.
At the end I replaced the Pi because it was faulty. The SD card reader was put on at an angle and it didn't read the cards properly.
The current Pi isn't the most reliable one on the planet either, but usually it boots 88% of the time. So it's good enough

I checked my power supply (5V 3.1A) my SD card (supported integral 16gb class 10) and reinstalled the image at least 5 times now on more then 1 card but it keeps booting inconsistently. It boots maybe 60% out of times and the other times it has trouble reading data, but when it boots it works fine and I can write to SD card.
So I'm looking for all info I can find and I find this topic and you state

"Manufacturing problems with cases and cables alike can lead to incorrect seating of power, Ethernet and HDMI cables, and these can all lead to problems."

What do you mean with seating of power?
Can my HDMI cable and Network cable have anything to do with my problems?
Any help would be greatly appreciated, in the official forums I havn't gotten a reply to my very extensive problem report yet and there doesn't seem to be another topic on ány forum about the exact problems I'm having.

If you don't mind that 1 out of 1000 chance for SD card corruption, there is an easier way to handle the whole "SD Card Stability thing" than just saying "always shutdown the pi correctly", which, let's face it, makes the pi a lot less fun: tweak the filesystem settings:

I've had 2 problems with my Pi so far. One resolved and one that isn't. the resolved one is that I was powering my Pi through a hub and the mouse and KB didn't work right. I still have a hub on my Pi but the power is from the Mini-USB now, not through the hub. the second problem is, I don't know Python to get my sensors running and reading. And, being in college right now, I don't really have the brain processing power to learn it.

I have done that. I don't know why I get the feeling that the power supply im using isn't compatible or something.

I took it out of the acrylic case i had because I feared some bolts would have been shorting the components. And when i would remove it from the case, it would boot up with the green lights. And then i Put it into a foldable case, and it wouldn't boot at first. but then it finally booted.

I often get the error "System Halted" with OpenELEC, at that point I remove the SD card and re-write an updated image to the card.

"and the SDHC format is particularly resilient." I think he means a non-HCSD. I use a class-10 and also have a Class 4. Both SDHC. The difference between them is amazing. But I have also corrupted both of them at one time or another. Turning the pi off when its writing will do that, though...

Christian Cawley is a Deputy Editor at MakeUseOf, covering security, Linux, DIY and programming. He has extensive experience in IT desktop and software support. Christian is a regular contributor to print publications such as Linux User & Developer, as well as a number of specials from Imagine Publishing and Future…